[The Silmarillion] Romimus

Three days have passed since Elrond and others were captured.

The good news is that Romemos is not as fond of abusing the captives as her colleagues are. In fact, apart from the fact that they are not free to move, they are treated pretty well for the captives. The priests in the tower bring them food, water and water three times a day. Candles, and at the same time ask them if they have other needs, and provide books, harps, chess, etc. for free.

The bad news is how can they have fun now?Every second that dragged on made Erizan more dangerous, and yet they were trapped here, with no hope of escape.The servants of Romemos would not say a single word every time, they turned around and left after delivering the things; It is 100% that the elves will die if they jump down, and crows fly by outside the window from time to time, monitoring their every move.

Now their only hope is that Glorfindel can rescue them from the outside, but this is not very realistic to be honest, there are nearly a hundred people patrolling nearby outside the tower, even if Glorfindel can pass through without disturbing anyone There was hardly any tall and sheltered heather flower field coming under the tower, and he could not open the tower door to enter the tower, and no one in the tower would open the door for him.

This restless situation with no hope of turning around continued until the afternoon of the fourth day.After the priest came to greet him as usual, he did not leave without saying a word as usual, but after looking around, his eyes fixed on Elrond.

"Your Excellency is Elrond, son of Erendil," he said. "Follow me, Lord Romimos wants to see you."

Elrond had no room to refuse, not to mention that he really wanted to see Romimos again, even if the other party's intentions were unpredictable, it was better than being locked in a cell and doing nothing.

Nodding reassuringly to the others, Elrond followed the priest out.

This is not the first time that Elrond has seen the whole interior of the Tower of Twilight, but when he was captured for the first time, everything was too hasty, and he was not in the mood to appreciate the surrounding environment at that time, so It was only now that Elrond was finally able to observe the scene in the tower seriously.

Compared with Minasvio's astonishingly novel appearance, her internal structure is more simple and practical. It is a very common cylindrical structure. The center of the tower is completely hollow. Looking up from the bottom, it can An unobstructed glance at the top of the black tower.Circles of stairs are in a perfect spiral around the most central floor, with intricate and exquisite heather and poppy patterns carved on the stair railings, reaching a floor every twenty to 25 feet, and each floor There were about three or four rooms, but all the doors were closed, and Elrond could not see what was inside the rooms.

If there is something that makes the inside of this tower different, it is probably that the owner of the tower has spared no effort to decorate and build it. It is different from her elegant and noble "sexual frigidity" appearance inherited from Gondolin. Mina The interior decoration of Sivio is very gorgeous. Almost every inch that can be processed is covered by various patterns, carvings, murals or brocades. The owner of the tower is obviously very bold in using various colors. Overall, It can be felt that it obviously prefers warm orange and golden yellow, but there are also dark blue, pink purple, fiery red, etc. The color tone inside the whole tower is like the colorful sky in the west when the sun is about to set. I can't tell how many colors there are in it. At first glance, it looks a bit messy, but after getting used to it, there will be a wonderful sense of harmony.

Elrond meets Romimos at the top of the tower.

At that time, she was wearing a lavender purple loose robe, reclining on a dark wooden couch and writing something, except for the long black hair that was randomly braided on her shoulders, her whole body was as white as a The snow was piled up, and there was not even any blood on the cheeks and lips.

"Lord Romemus." The priest approached her, bent down and called out in a low voice.

Romemos raised his eyes and nodded: "It's hard work."

The priest shook his head slightly, stepped back, and Romimos looked at Elrond again.

"Sorry, I should have come to welcome you earlier, but I haven't been in good health these days. Are you anxious to wait?" She said briskly.

This doesn't seem like a perfunctory lie, except for the other party's pale face, Elrond can still see the looming white bandage through the light veil on Romimos' shoulders, and the movement of her getting up from the chair is also similar. It was unnatural, and the injury seemed serious.

But Elrond would not admit that he was waiting for Romimos to find him, so he just pulled a face, said nothing, and did not look directly at her face, but swept down and landed On the few sheets of paper in Romemos's hand - at first glance, it seemed to be blank, and there was nothing on it, but Elrond stared carefully for a few seconds, and finally saw the characters on it, written in silver The writing with the pen emits a faint light, which is indeed not easy to see clearly, and it disappears after a few flashes.

Romemos followed his line of sight and looked down as well.

"The Runes of the Moon," she explained, looking at Elrond with interest. "You know them?"

"I have heard of such writing," said Elrond, "but have not seen it myself."

"It is indeed a relatively rare writing, and only mortals can get a glimpse of it under the moonlight. The dwarves are unwilling to spread their language, and now there are fewer and fewer people who can recognize this writing." Luo Mi Moss curled his lips, "Are you interested? I can teach you."

"..." Elrond had to admit that he felt a little itchy in his heart. He had always loved literature and was willing to delve into all kinds of characters and languages. As I said, because its reading conditions are extremely strict, except for some very special cases, no one uses it anymore.

However, as the saying goes, there is nothing to be courteous about - rape or robbery, not to mention that Romimos is on the opposite side, so it is even more necessary to be vigilant at all times, so Elrond hesitated for less than half a second, and was still cautious. shook his head.

"Don't think too much, I don't mean anything else." Romimos saw through what he was thinking, and smiled, "It's just that I am very happy to see someone so studious, especially a child of Elendil. But don't you It’s fine if you want to learn from me. You should know Galadriel, right? She was a student of Auri at the beginning, and she should be more familiar with the language of dwarves than most people. If you are interested, you can ask her. But it’s hard for you Come here once, it's too impolite for me to say nothing."

No, at least you have left an infinite area of ​​psychological shadow. Elrond can now understand why his father turned blue every time he mentioned Romimos when he was a child.

"Ah, then you might like this." Romemos suddenly thought of something, excitedly rang the bell, and said to the priest who rushed over after hearing the sound, "Can you help me get room 36 on the west side of the seventh floor?" Something in the closet?"

While waiting for the priest, Romemos refused to be idle. She walked to the wall, but she didn't know where to press it, and a hidden door automatically popped open. Opening the door of the cupboard, he rummaged through it familiarly. He didn't hide that Elrond was still there, and Elrond simply didn't avoid suspicion. He turned his head to see what was in the door—a boxy In the small grid, there are all kinds of parchment and papyrus filled with densely packed small characters. Only Elrond can see, there are nearly a hundred sheets, and based on the size of the hidden door, there are at least There must be two or three hundred volumes, but who knows how many secret doors like this there are in Romemos?

The handwriting on these papers is not exactly the same, and the materials and ages are also different. Some of them are curly and yellowed. Elrond estimates that they must be at least several hundred years old, but they are still very well preserved.Elrond glanced briefly, and could see that there were poems, maps, music scores... all kinds of things, and there were even some handwritten manuscripts left by elves and anthropologists a long time ago.

"Ah, here it is." Romimos whispered, pulled out a thick bundle of paper rolls, untied the tied rope, and spread out the large picture.

Elrond took a look, and probably saw something, but it was not very clear: "This is it?"

"Star map." Romimos said, circled the big piece in the upper right corner with his finger, "This is the change of the moon's profit and loss, every season, every month, every day. Sometimes Tirion really doesn't points, but most of the time he will honestly follow the prescribed route."

Elrond recognized it too, but he still couldn't guess what Romimos was up to.

"My lord, what you want." At this moment, the priest finally came back, holding a wooden box about forty centimeters high, and presented it to Romemos respectfully.

"Trouble." Romemos took it, opened the box, and took out a... ball?

It is said to be a ball, but it actually has a base. The base is made of brass. The base is in the form of two rings, evenly engraved with complicated patterns, and inlaid with twelve different gemstones, while the sphere is dull off-white.

"This is a 'moon lamp'. It may not be very eye-catching at first glance. When you use it, you need to inject your power into it, and you can simulate the light from the moon in a small area." Romemos explained to Elrond Demonstration, as her eyes became more and more golden, the originally ordinary sphere also gradually exuded a bright silver light.Romimos took the paper with the Moon Rune on it that she had just read, and put it under the light.

Nothing happened.

"Some moon runes are written more ingeniously, and they will only appear under the moonlight on a specific day in a specific season every year." Romemos said, "For example, the words on this one are written by me on the sixth day of this year. It was written on the first quarter of the moon, and most people have to wait until next year if they want to see the words on it. But with a moon lamp, it is much easier to handle, and it is best if you are familiar with the moon phases, but even if You don't know, as long as you can read the star chart, and then adjust the astrolabe to the day you need..."

Romemos stretched out her fingers, and lightly flipped the ring under the lamp holder a few times. With her movements, the round and fat "little full moon" really darkened, and the angle and brightness of the light also changed. There were some subtle differences, and silver writing gradually appeared on the paper.

"Do you like it?" Romimos asked expectantly.

"...I have no intention of taking anything with me." Actually, if the giver hadn't been Romimos, or at least hadn't received the present under the circumstances, Elrond thought he would have liked it, but he Now I can only say dryly, "If your kindness is sincere, let us leave."

Romemus smiled slightly, and put the lamp back into the box.

"It's fine if you don't like it, I'll think about something else." She said, "Then I'll ask the business first."

Elrond breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. He felt that he would rather face an insidious and cruel devil directly than it would be more uncomfortable than always hanging on his heart and not being able to guess the other party's mind.

"Tell me about it." Romimos leaned back on the wooden couch, lazily brushing his long hair on his shoulders, "about Glorfindel."

"...What?" Elrond suspected that he had heard wrong.

"Glorfindel," repeated Rommimus, "I thought he came back to Mandos after falling off the cliff. I tracked down the ring I gave him, but I could never find him, and it arrived instead. In the hands of Idril, I heard so many songs about him, and I even saw the men of Gondolin set up a stone tablet for him. The elves made such a grand ceremony, that I always thought he was dead! But he is still alive. Alive? He has disappeared for so many years, even I haven't heard any news about him, did he do it on purpose?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Elrond looked puzzled. "It is true that Lord Glorfindel died protecting others when Gondolin fell."

"Who was the one who shot me that day? His ghost?" Romimos sneered.

"After the souls of the elves return to the hall of Mandos, those who were heroic and great during their lifetime can be forgiven by Vera and be reborn." Elrond was a little strange, "Don't you know about this?"

"Of course I know, but... what do you mean?" Romemos's smile gradually disappeared, "Could it be that he returned to Middle-earth after he was resurrected in Valinor?"

"That's it."

Romemos was tongue-tied: "How long has he been back?"

"It should be less than a month."

"One month? That means it was not long ago that we left Aman Island?!" Romimos's complexion was wonderful, changing from white to red, and then from red to black.

Elrond looked at her in amazement, not knowing why Romimos had such a big reaction.

Just when Romemos lost his temper inexplicably and Elrond stood there in a daze, unable to leave or stay, the priest appeared in time and saved the embarrassing situation on the scene.

"Lord Romimos," the priest called out cautiously, "Miss Bell is here to see you."

"Bell? What is she doing here?" Romimos was stunned for a moment and asked strangely.

"Miss Bell came here with a human being this time, the son of Patriarch Sires."

"Oh. Then let them come up." Romemos still didn't understand what was going on, but he agreed, and glanced at Elrond, "He, keep it locked."